Vampire Hunter D Volume 13: Twin-Shadowed Knight Parts 1 and 2 (14 page)

“What, are you saving yourself like some kind of natural monument?”

“Go to him.”

The second voice was D's, and it startled Mia.

Go over there and do what? Still, she got the feeling that if she went over, everything would be all right.

Approaching Kuentz with steps she herself found oddly stiff, she asked him in an even stiffer tone, “Uh, what's the problem?”

The recipient of that query remained as sullen as ever, saying, “Nothing.”

He left her no opening at all.

“What a pain.”

She turned toward D, seeking aid, but his eyes were shut as if in contemplation. Almost mesmerized by the sight of him, Mia hastily turned back to Kuentz and said, “What a great guy.”

“Excuse me?” the young man said, eyes popping. He saw Mia, head hung low and cheeks reddening with the realization she'd made a mistake. Giving a sudden cough, he fought desperately to keep his hard exterior from collapsing.

It was all just a misunderstanding. And that misunderstanding was the start of everything.

“Uh—it's nothing. I'll go now.” Mia's face was still flushed.

“Um—wait a sec.”

“Yes?” Mia asked as she turned.

“It's nothing,” he said, looking sullen again.

D's left hand gurgled with laughter, but the two of them didn't notice. “These young folks don't need a go-between meddling in this. Though from what I've seen, the girl's smitten with you.”

“How long till we reach the surface?”

“Well,” the hoarse voice began, “my instincts tell me roughly thirty minutes. If nothing comes up, that is.”

The blue pendant on D's chest gave off a piercing light.

At that point, Mia stalked back indignantly and grumbled, “That numbskull!”

“What is it?” D asked. And amazingly enough, there seemed to be just the tiniest bit of amusement in his tone.

“Damned if I know. No matter what I say to him, he just sits there sulking and won't say a peep. Calls himself a man, but he doesn't know when a woman—I mean, he's just rotten.”

“What are you saying about me?” Kuentz complained from off in the distance. “You're the one acting like a hysterical old hag-to-be. One look at a guy who's kinda good looking and you're hot and bothered in a flash.”

“What did you say?”

Mia was livid. Using both hands to form a symbol, she began to chant an unsettling spell.

“There!” she exclaimed, smacking her hands together.

“What the hell?” Kuentz screamed, falling backward.

Thunder resounded over his head.

As he staggered wildly, he groaned, “That hurts! What've you done?”

“Serves you right,” Mia said, turning away indignantly. “That's what you get for insulting people. Consider yourself lucky your brain didn't explode.”

“Why I oughta—” the man began, raising one hand, but perhaps the aftereffects of the blast to his brain still lingered, because his feet tangled and he toppled to one side.

“Oh, no!” Mia exclaimed, dashing over to him. Apparently she felt some responsibility for the effects of her spell.

D didn't even bother to look at them. Without making a sound, he crouched down.

From the darkness ahead of him a figure leapt and struck down at him. Narrowly dodging the blow, D swept out with his leg. The body's momentum carried it forward as it fell, bringing it skidding to Mia's and Kuentz's feet, where it stopped.

Taking one look at the man who quickly got back on his feet and held his short spear at the ready, Kuentz cried, “Chang? But you were—I left you outside.”

“What've you been doing, Kuentz?” Chang asked, staring at D as if he were his sworn foe. “I was waiting for you the whole time. But you never came back, so finally I—”

“Sorry. But you've gotta listen to me. These folks aren't our enemies. Hey!”

“It's no use,” said a voice that seemed to come from far off in the distance.

Turning, he saw D standing just three feet away.

“That isn't one of your friends. Stand back.”

“You can't be serious. I'm sure it's Chang. Stop!”

“Don't let him trick you,” Chang said, bloodshot eyes fixed on D. “I can tell. He's got the stink of the Nobility on him. He's the enemy.”

“Stand back,” D told Kuentz again.

The next instant, Chang made another thrust at D.

D dodged to the right. The thrust came at such a precise angle that it was the only thing he could do.

Chang's hands slid down to just below the head of the spear, and using that point as the fulcrum, he swung it at D's legs. With its core of lead, the shaft could bend an iron bar.

D's body flowed in the same direction as the short spear.

Mia gave a cry of surprise. Both of D's feet were resting on the shaft of the spear.

Releasing his spear in amazement, Chang went for the sword on his hip with his right hand. D's blade ripped into him, slicing him from the top of his head all the way down through his ribs. A bloody fog filled the air like a sudden shower, covering the walls and floor—but not Mia or Kuentz.

Chang tumbled to the ground.

“Chang?” Kuentz raced over to him, and on seeing that his friend was beyond hope, he looked down at the floor. When he turned and looked at D a short time later, his face was a mask of malice and rage.

“Why'd you kill him? With all your skill, you could've finished it without taking his life. So why'd you do it?”

“He's not your friend.”

“Don't make me laugh. How would you know that?”

“Have a look at his right ankle. When he came at me, I broke it. But even after that, he stood on it without any problem.”

Checking his anger, Kuentz felt his friend's right foot. He soon gave a nod, saying, “It's just as you said. But that alone isn't enough for me to say this wasn't Chang. D, I'm not quite satisfied.”

“We can talk about that once we're out of here.”

Kuentz remained intransigent until Mia intervened, saying, “He's right. Knock it off.”

“Okay. But in return, once we're safely back on the surface, you know what's coming, right?”

“Very well,” D said, his eyes unusually calm as they reflected the person who'd just challenged him to a duel.

The trio started down the corridor again.

Ten minutes later, Mia brought her hand to her nose, asking, “Does something smell funny?”

“I was thinking the same thing,” Kuentz said, pulling his collar and sleeve over and giving them a sniff.

D was silent.

Twenty minutes later, the smell” the two of them had mentioned could no longer be denied, and it surrounded the group.

“It's blood,” Kuentz muttered, and Mia nodded her agreement.

D kept his silence.

After another thirty minutes, amid a stench so powerful they had to wonder if their exposed skin wasn't drenched in blood, the two of them concentrated anxious gazes on D as he walked ahead of them in deathly silence.

Presently, D halted. Ahead of them, stone steps were visible.

“The exit's at the top of them,” a hoarse voice said. It was easy enough to sense the tension in its tone.

“D,” Mia called out to him.

The figure in black seemed to grow heavy and motionless, as if he'd been transformed into a statue.

“Go on ahead,” D said. His voice had the ring to it of someone fighting for control, and the pair involuntarily looked at each other.

“What's wrong, D?”

“Go.”

Slapping Mia on the shoulder, Kuentz urged her, “Go on ahead now, okay?”

“But—”

“Don't worry about him. I'll take care of you.”

Mia stared into his youthful face. “Thanks,” she said, and then she kept on walking. Kuentz followed along right behind her.

As Mia was about to slip by D on his right-hand side, arms clad in black wrapped around her waist and shoulder, pulling her closer.

“What are you doing?”

“Knock it off, D!” Kuentz howled.

Before him and the wriggling Mia, D initiated a weird action. Sticking his left hand into his coat and pulling out a broad-bladed knife some sixteen inches long, he gripped it between his teeth. Twisting his exquisite countenance back as if knocked for a loop, when he swung it forward again, its target was his left arm—which was raised to the height of his chin. With a disturbing sound, his left hand fell to the floor. And then, much to Kuentz's surprise, the hand made a great bound for the right arm the Hunter had wrapped around Mia's waist. When the two hands touched, the fingers of the right one opened, releasing Mia.

Dashing over, Kuentz pulled Mia to himself, and then backed away.

“Why don't you . . . go ahead? You're going backward,” D groaned in an eerie tone.

“He's right. Hurry up and go already!” said the hoarse voice from the left hand.

While the two of them had said the same thing, for some reason it sounded like they were bickering.

The left hand flew to D's neck, pressing his head against the opposite wall as it shouted, “Go!”

Driven by a cry that bordered on a bellow of rage, the two of them advanced down the corridor. They raced up the stairs—without looking at D. They got the feeling something unimaginably bad was happening. They must've climbed twenty or thirty steps, and after about that many more stairs, there loomed an iron door.

“There it is!”

The second they put more strength into their legs, a black cyclone blew past them from below, flying over the pair's heads and landing five or six stairs ahead of them. There stood D. But was this the same D they knew? With skin a shade paler than before, crimson light spilling from his eyes—and oh, the pair of fangs that peeked from his slender lips. Was this what their foe had arranged? Was this the purpose of the foul-smelling substance that'd been mixed in Chang's blood? Now, between the young man and woman and their way out, a fearsome Noble stood blocking the way—and it was none other than D.

 
FLEEING THROUGH THE SNOW

-

I

-

"D," Mia said, standing in a paralyzed daze. A pair of fangs were reflected in her eyes. Fangs that weren't meant to be seen. Fangs she never wanted to see.

“This can't be happening,” she muttered. “It can't be! It can't! It can't!”

“No, it is,” Kuentz told her, climbing another step higher to shield Mia with his body. “We've gotta turn back, Mia.”

“We can't. That's the only exit up there. We'd never last long enough to find another way out.”

The two of them were already rooted to the ground like trees.

“I'll thank you to step aside, D,” Kuentz said to the Hunter. “I know I don't have a prayer of winning if I go up against you. But even if I did, I still wouldn't want to.”

Though the young man had abhorred D for being a dhampir, he'd since come to revere the Hunter. Even with the other half of D's nature revealed—and the fangs of a Noble bared—it did nothing at all to change the way Kuentz felt. He showed no signs of readying his iron arrows or concealed blade.

D smoothly strode forward. His blazing crimson eyes bored through the pair.

Kuentz resolved to defend Mia. His left arm rose. The air whistled as he shot one of his iron arrows. Though he shouldn't have been able to stop it, D grabbed it right in front of his chest. At the same time, Kuentz leapt.

The instant he decided to fight, the only plan of attack that'd arisen in his brain was to keep D's hands occupied. In fact, the Hunter had cut off his own left hand. That left only the right one. If he was unable to use it, Kuentz would have a few seconds when the Hunter would be open to attack before he had use of the limb again. And that was Kuentz's only hope of victory.

D discarded the iron arrow.

From above, Kuentz drove his blade down at the nape of D's neck. For an instant, there was a choking cry of pain, and with it, the young man's body twisted in midair. When he thudded to the ground at D's feet, the young man had a black arrow jutting from his left shoulder—the very same arrow he himself had launched. D hadn't discarded the arrow he'd caught, but rather had hurled it at Kuentz.

There was no change to the beauty of the countenance that peered down at the writhing Kuentz, but the ripples of malice that rose in the Hunter's eyes and the terrific hunger there were a sight to see. Reaching out with his right hand, he seized Kuentz by the throat. A cry of agony flowed upward as D hoisted Kuentz into the air with one arm. The concealed blade dropped from Kuentz's hand, rattling loudly. The young man's neck was right in front of the Hunter's lips. They snapped open savagely.

Seeing the crimson interior of his mouth, Mia felt lightheaded. And because of this, she didn't remember shouting, “Stop it!” or snatching up the concealed blade and driving it into D's chest. The next thing she knew, she'd backed down a couple of stairs and was staring at the two men. Kuentz was crouched at D's feet, coughing, while the gorgeous Hunter trained his gaze on Mia without saying a word. More than Kuentz's blade, which she'd driven into his sternum, it was the look D gave her that shook Mia.

“Nicely done,” he said in the voice of the beautiful Vampire Hunter she knew so well.

At Mia's feet, a hoarse voice remarked, “I'd say so,” but she only understood D.

“D—you're better, aren't you?” the girl said, her voice choked with relief and tears.

D didn't reply to her, but instead grabbed Kuentz by the shoulder and pulled him to his feet, telling him to climb the staircase before him.

As Mia was just about to follow Kuentz up, a hand latched onto her ankle.

“Good lord!” Mia shouted, and looking down, she was left breathless.

Having been taken off at the shoulder, D's left arm was gripping her ankle tightly.

“W-what are you doing?”

“Don't worry about me. Just keep going. I'll stick with you,” the left hand said.

Though she knew it could talk, the situation was somewhat uncanny.

“Can't you walk yourself?”

“Nope.”

“Then I guess it can't be helped. So, you can stay alive for a long time after D cuts you off?”

“Well, I manage.”

“I see,” Mia said, oddly satisfied. Seeming overly conscious of her pants leg, she began climbing the stairs.

Sunlight enveloped the group. While they were fleeing through the subterranean facility, it appeared an entire day and night had passed.

Looking at the scene that surrounded them, Kuentz declared with surprise, “This—this is Mount Ziriilla!”

It was one in a cluster of mountains that rose to the west of the village, and it towered to five thousand feet above sea level. Snow capped its summit irrespective of season. Aside from the beautiful blue sky and scattered patches of black rock, the three of them were surrounded by a world of pure white.

The exit opened between boulders—most likely the underground facility spread not only beneath the “red wasteland,” but also under the village and all its surroundings.

“It's cold,” Mia said, hugging her own arms as she turned toward D.

The exquisite Hunter stood a short distance from the boulders, looking up. How beautiful his face and body appeared engulfed in the light. Her brain pleasantly numbed, Mia only thought of the danger inherent in that very same light a few seconds later. Due to the Noble blood that ran in a dhampir's veins, sunlight could have devastating effects. However, the gorgeous Hunter showed no signs of fear as he turned his face to the light, not even using his remaining arm to brace himself as he stood on his own two feet.

As the shadowy remnants of the madness that'd come over him on the way up the stairs melted away in the light, Mia was amazed. A conversation she'd had with her mother about the Nobility rang once more in her ears.

The light sears the Nobles' flesh, making them feel more pain than we would if burned by a flame. However, the light has a mysterious power. There's something about it the Nobility can't help but love. The proof of that is that of all the Nobles who've been destroyed by the rays of the sun, every last one of them was smiling. Perhaps something within the light burns away all the cruelty and evil that lurks in the blood of the Nobility.

“D,” she muttered, but just then there was a tug at her ankle.

“What is it?”

“Bring me over to him.”

“Go over there yourself. You're giving me the creeps.”

“What are you talking about? You've got a left hand of your own, don't you? Now hurry up and bring me over there.”

“I've had it with you!” Mia said, but nevertheless, she bent over and collected the left arm with visible distaste.

“Don't bother, Mia. I'll bring it over for you,” Kuentz told her after grasping the situation.

“Don't stick your nose into this, punk,” the left hand sneered threateningly.

“Shut your hole, freak,” Kuentz said, extending his left arm—the one with the sights for the arrow launcher on it.

“Yipes!” the left arm exclaimed, flying out of Mia's hands and falling on the snow. Scattering powder everywhere, it rushed toward D.

“You lied to me, didn't you?” Mia said angrily, but Kuentz gave her a slap on the shoulder. He was smiling. A smile bloomed on Mia's face as well.

The scrambling left arm bounded when it reached D's feet, sticking to the wound on his left shoulder. The line between them faded, and the joint promptly went back to normal. Swimming in the sunlight, D didn't so much as glance down at the limb.

“Hey! That punk kid's some kinda homicidal maniac. Waste him!” the left hand cried as it rose quite naturally to level a finger at Kuentz.

Promptly lowering his hand again, D asked the pair, “Can you make it back down?”

“Yeah, we'll be okay,” Kuentz replied, throwing out his chest. “I've climbed it a bunch of times in the past. Just leave it to me.”

“In that case, get going.”

“Hold on a minute. You mean you're not coming? So, you plan on going back down there, do you?”

“You'd better go.”

Though D's words were soft, they had the knife edge of the wind to them.

The pair nodded.

“D, you'd better make it back,” Mia said. D's figure grew hazy beyond her frozen, white breath. “We'll be waiting down below. We'd better see you there.”

There was no reply.

“Let's go, Mia,” Kuentz said, taking her by the arm.

Just then, each of them saw an iridescent light skim through the corner of their eye, but when they tried to focus on it, there was nothing there. Looking back time and again, Mia made her way down the snowy slope. Beside the rocks, the form of the young man in black grew more and more distant until finally it was hidden by a gust of snow.

“So, how are we gonna get down from here anyway?”

Kuentz's words left Mia stunned.

“You mean you're not used to climbing this mountain?”

“Well—that was a lie.”

“Why would you say that? These slopes are pretty steep. And the snow down below is probably hard. It'd be really easy to trigger an avalanche. There's no way anyone who doesn't know the route could do it. But you had to—”

Mia tried to cover her mouth, but she was too late. Before she could stop herself, a tremendous sneeze exploded from her. At least she managed to stifle the second and third.

Several seconds passed—and both of them listened intently.

Letting her shoulders drop, Mia said, “Looks like we're in the clear.”

Kuentz shook his head. “No, it's coming.”

As Mia knit her brow, a deep, distant rumble reached her ears. Even if it wasn't due to her sneeze just now, the snow certainly gave way readily enough.

“Just so you know, if we die out here, it'll be all your fault.”

“If we do, you won't be around to complain about it,” Kuentz retorted. “But forget that. Let's get down as quick as we can. Luckily, there's bare rock over there all the way down to the bottom. We'll follow that.”

“Okay.”

Mia turned her head to look up. The blue sky stretched on forever.

The sky and the sun will protect us, she told herself. Even if we have to return to the depths of the earth at some point, the sunlight and the blue sky will banish the darkness.

And then, in a voice so small no one would hear it, she said, Isn't that right, D?